Is it possible to live a good life in a corrupt society?

                 This is probably one of the most exciting and thoughtful questions that I’ve heard in our TOK class. In order to answer this question you have to think in so many principles and in so many different ways this question can be interpreted. First of all, what is a good life? We are all different human beings and we can’t be categorized in one category for all because not even identical twins are similar in everything. My knowledge of living a good life can be very different on the person that is reading this now and it varies from person to person. I may think that living a good life is when you’re with the one you love doing a profession that you love even if it does not give you a lot of money. “Living a good life”, could also mean that you did not necessarily did everything that you had wished that you did, but you have a  great job that makes you very rich and you can so whatever you like, when though you don’t really like that job. You have money, therefore you are happy. The definition of “A good life” changes from people to people but in this case, I think that we can all answer as a whole even though people have different ways of seeing a good life.

              So is it possible? Yes. Yes and you can do it in many ways. One way for example, we live in this bubble called Graded. Once we surpass that gate, we probably won’t leave until classes are over and then there are even afterschool activities or game night which you leave school at 9 pm. You go straight to your bed, sleep and get ready for your routine all over again. You are not paying attention to the corrupt society around you because you are busy with something else.  So should we simply ignore the corrupt society and government and just live our lives as if they were not there? No. The thing is that one cannot simply ignore this corruption. Lately in Brazil there was been so many manifestations and the people were talked seriously. You just can’t base yourself around that. You have to make your life worth living. Once, a great teacher (Eliot Greene) told be a certain quote, that even though it was not in the same context, it fits for his occasion: “When Shi** hits the fan, Get busy”. (sorry for the bad word) But it’s true. This is one of my favorite quotes and it shows how we can’t let certain things get us so immensely down and unhappy. We have to move our own lives on. Life goes on and it moves fast, it doesn’t stop for anyone so we have to avoid being left behind.

      When we thing about if it is possible to live in a corrupt society, we also have to think on what does the question mean by society? A society is composed from people living under certain rules. They are free but to a certain limit. One can’t just run naked in the street just because they’d want to, they have to live in a certain set of rules. A person can live a good life when the society is corrupt, when no one around him/her is making the right choices, it is still up to you to keep in track. Though if you live among the corrupt you are most likely to become one. Socrates the philosopher believed that our true happiness is promoted by doing what is right, meaning that we could be happy in a corrupt society as long as you were not corrupt. He believed that Self-knowledge is the sufficient condition to the good life. It then leads to the question of “what is right?”, is my perception of “right” the same as yours?

            All in all, the world if full of questions which we can’t answer and that’s what it makes it more interesting every day, we seek for answers. Can we live a good life in a corrupt society? Yes and no. We can live but at the same time there’s always a limit. ”Die as a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain”,  you can live happily even though you are inclined to corrupt because you are living among people who do so.  As seen there are many factor that you have to keep in mind such as “What is good for you?” and “what is a society” because those factors have a crucial impact in your life. You have to pick a way to see this question but essentially Yes, you can live a great life in a corrupt society but it can also be very challenging.